EEC / MEGAPHONES – Hannes Praks + Birgit Öigus (EE) / East Park

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The megaphone installation provides an excellent opportunity to experience the meeting of contemporary architectural space and wild nature – and it is freely accessible for foreigners as well as local travellers. Part building, part furniture, part recreational folly, they’re meant to focus visitor attention on the smallest acoustic details of the site: rainfall, branches brushing against one another in the breeze, distant footsteps, thunder.

An installation of three gigantic wooden megaphones built by a team of Estonian Academy of Arts interior architecture students is open for all park dwellers for resting, contemplation and above all – listening to the sounds of nature. This is, however, not the only use for the installation, as it will double as a sitting and resting area, and can be used as a stage for small events.

The author of the idea is one of the students, Birgit Õigus, and her coursemates Mariann Drell, Ardo Hiiuväin, Lennart Lind, Henri Kaarel Luht, Mariette Nõmm, Johanna Sepp, Kertti Soots and Sabine Suuster.

SHORT HISTORY OF EAST PARK

Wrocław’s East Park stretches north-east to Krakowska, over a quadrangle enclosed by the residential areas of Księże Małe in the south, Świątniki in the east, Bierdzany in the north and Wilczy Kąt in the west. The park is bounded by two branches of the Oława River – the Upper Oława and the Lower Oława, which re-unite in its northern part. After WW2, the park was downsized when a portion of its original 40 hectares area was cut off to form a parking lot and another one given over to the “Storm” Sports Club. Unlike today, the park was initially under single, unified management even though it housed several facilities offering diversified recreational opportunities: a playground, a bathing area and allotment gardens.

As wetlands, the area between the Odra and the Oława Rivers had long remained sparsely housed, with only Rakowiec and Bierdzany traditionally serving as suburban nature walk and recreational grounds. Only when the city expanded south-east at the turn of the 19th century did it become urgent to create a public park in this neighbourhood to meet the needs of, chiefly, the community inhabiting the triangle formed by the present-day Krakowska (Ofenerstrasse), Traugutta (Klosterstrasse) and the eastern section of Kościuszki (Taunzienstrasse) at one end and the residents of Tarnogaj (Dűrrgoy) at the other.

The terms of the 1921 competition for the urban development of Breslau (as Wrocław was called back then) and its suburbs envisioned a wide belt of green along the banks of Odra, Widawa, Ślęża, Bystrzyca and Oława Rivers. As one of the competition outcomes, the decision was made that Księże Małe would house a residential estate, boosting a significant population increase in this part of the city. This gave a further impulse for developing a park in the area. The working-class estate south-west to Opolska was built in 1928 based on the design by Paul Heim and Albert Kempter.

All these factors influenced the choice of the location for the future East Park, envisaged as a counterpart of the Szczytnicki Park just opposite across the Odra River. Similarly to the South and the West Parks, the park’s name explicitly foregrounded its territorial function and local focus.

Since the original design of the park developed by Paul Dannenberg has not been retrieved, it is rather difficult to establish with any certainty when exactly the plan originated. The park earthworks on the Oława River bank commenced in the autumn of 1927 and were completed on 1 July, 1929. Interestingly, in the construction brick rubble was used which came from demolition works clearing the site in the triangle of the present-day Kościuszko, Świdnicka and Podwale Świdnickie for the Werheim department store (now PDT). As the press reported, 18 000 carts of the rubble went into the making of the park, which gives us an idea what a marshy area the park was laid out on and, hence, how challenging the earthworks must have been.

At the same time, the park was supposed to retain the vegetation distinct to the Oława River’s wetland landscape. The tree species used included such typical floodmeadow specimens as alders, willows and (swamp) oaks. Particular efforts were made to reproduce the ground plantlife, complete with several species of grass, herbs and mycelium.

Costing 1.5 million German marks, the East Park was created to serve Breslau’s numerous residents keen on active pastimes and, in particular, sports. The population’s needs and expectations were to be met by playgrounds where children and youth could play team games, tennis courts, a marina and a bathing area on the river bank. The target users of the park included middle- and low-income groups, such as workers, clerks and artisans.

The park’s layout was harmonised with the adjacent allotment area (Schrebergarten). The over hundred allotments it included were also intended for low-income residents of the neighbourhood.

In the mid-1930s, a memorial of the SA designed by Richard Konwiarz was erected in the eastern part of the park. Dating to 1935 and signed by the architect, the original plan has been preserved in the Architectural Archive of the City of Wrocław.